


not quite poetry

by marginaliana



Category: Stardew Valley (Video Game)
Genre: Other, word kink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-29
Updated: 2019-09-29
Packaged: 2020-11-07 12:43:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20817482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marginaliana/pseuds/marginaliana
Summary: Elliot had forgotten his notebook, so he ended up writing on his arm.





	not quite poetry

**Author's Note:**

  * For [emef](https://archiveofourown.org/users/emef/gifts).

Elliot had forgotten his notebook. He could picture its location now, inside his little shack on the beach: away from the writing desk and the piano and the bed, a birdlike spread of pages against the floor in the far corner where he'd thrown it in a bout of frustration. 

Not unusual. But it _was_ unusual in that he hadn't sighed and run his hands carefully through his hair and picked it up again. Instead he'd gone out and stared at the ocean and then come here to the library instead.

He had wandered among the shelves, picking up a book here and there based on an intriguing title or an attractive cover. He'd ended up with the one in his hand, a collection of legends from before the founding of Pelican Town. Stories that were mysterious and only half-told. He wanted to finish them, wanted to fill pages and pages with the sweeping romance of their truths.

But he'd left behind his notebook.

He couldn't go back for it now – the world outside would be too real, would dissipate the inspiration like fog when the sun came out. No, he'd have to make do.

He crossed hurriedly to the front desk and snatched up a pen, ignoring Gunther's silent look of disapproval, then dashed back to the book, finding the correct page once again. Yes, there. _This_. He pulled the cap off the pen and set the tip to his arm, the only surface he had.

The exhilaration of writing was all-consuming, as it always was. Words, stories, the interlacing of image and narrative. He wrote, knowing nothing else, and it was only when he lifted the pen and took a conscious breath that the heat of it struck him.

Each line of ink like a trail of sand, hot from the beach on a summer's day, like the sharp edge of a shell washed up into a tide pool. Words, his own hotter than the few quotes from the book, not quite poetry but not merely prose.

Elliot realized with some horror that he was reacting to the sensation with more than just curiosity. He turned hurriedly towards the bookcase and slid the book of legends back into its place. A scan of the titles along the shelf revealed something called ‘Fishing With Slimes'; he grabbed it, opened to a random page, and read intently about the topology of the mountain lakes until his arousal eased.

The arousal was a surprise, and yet it wasn't, somehow. Words were thrilling, but he'd never written on himself before, never felt them so physically; the occasional smudged ink on his fingertips was nothing like this. But when he thought of his own words marking him, leaving something almost permanent, something like the novel he had yet to write… yes, that would be arousing. Of course it would.

He kept himself carefully calm as he crossed back to the desk and dropped Gunther's pen into the little bucket. "Thanks," he said, and then he was out the door, walking swiftly but not hurriedly back to the beach. He passed the farmer on the way, but they didn't speak.

Back in his hut, he flung himself down on the bed. He lifted his arm, looking at the words, letting the heat of them settle into him once more. If he had any sense, he'd be transcribing them into his notebook now. He couldn't make himself do it. Instead he lifted his free hand, trailed one finger along the cursive shape of the first word. Excitement shivered through him. _Yes,_ he thought, _yes, yes,_ and he spread out his fingertips to touch the rest of the sentence, letting the words roll up and through, skin to skin, down into his very veins.


End file.
